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Loyalty Leaflets ? t t No. 4 



A War Message 
to the Farmer 




By 
PRESIDENT WILSON 



Sent to a Farmers' Conference at 
Urbana, 111., January 31, 1918 



f-Z 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 
The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 

llorfod oof. 



A "War Message to the Farmer 



I AM very sorry indeed that I cannot be present in 
person at theUrbana conference. I should like to 
enjoy the benefit of the inspiration and exchange of 
counsel which I know I should obtain; but in the cir- 
cumstances it has seemed impossible for me to be 
present, and therefore I can only send you a very 
earnest message expressing my interest and the 
thoughts which such a conference must bring promi- 
nently into every mind. 

The Object op the War 

I need not tell you, for I am sure you realize as keenly 
as I do, that we are, as a nation, in the presence of a great 
task which demands supreme sacrifice and endeavor of 
every one of us. We can give everything that is needed 
with the greater willingness, and even satisfaction, be- 
cause the object of the war in which we are engaged is 
the greatest that free men have ever undertaken. 

It is to prevent the life of the world from being 
determined and the fortunes of men everywhere 
affected by small groups of military masters who seek 
their own interest and the selfish dominion throughout 
the world of the Governments they unhappily for the 
moment control. 

You will not need to be convinced that it was nec- 
essary for us as a free people to take part in this war. 
It had raised its evil hand against us. 

The rulers of Germany had sought to exercise their 
power in such a way as to shut off our economic life 
so far as our intercourse with Europe was concerned, 
and to confine our people within the western hemis- 
phere while they accomplished purposes which would 
have permanently impaired and impeded every process 
of our national life and have put the fortunes of Amer- 
2 



ica at the mercy of the Imperial Government of Ger- 
many. This was no threat. It had become a reality. 

Fighting for our Liberty 

o 

Their hand of violence had been laid upon our own 
people and our own property, in flagrant violation not 
only of justice but of the well-recognized and long- 
standing covenants of international law and treaty. 

We are fighting, therefore, as truly for the liberty 
and self-government of the United States as if the war 
of our own Revolution had to be fought over again; 
and every man in every business in the United States 
must know by this time that his whole future fortune 
lies in the balance. 

Our national life and our whole economic develop- 
ment will pass under the sinister influence of foreign 
control if we do not win. We must win, therefore, and 
we shall win. I need not ask you to pledge your lives 
and fortunes with those of the rest of the nation to the 
accomplishment of that great end. 

You will realize, as I think statesmen on both sides 
of the water realize, that the culminating crisis of the 
struggle has come and that the achievements of this 
year on the one side or the other must determine the 

sue. 

Our Associates Depend upon us for Supplies 

It has turned out that the forces that fight for free- 
dom, the freedom of men all over the world as well as 
our own, depend upon us in an extraordinary and un- 
expected degree for sustenance, for the supply of the 
materials by which men are to live and to fight; and it 
will be our glory when the war is over that we have 
supplied those materials and supplied them abun- 
dantly, and it will be all the more glory because in sup- 
plying them we have made our supreme effort and 
sacrifice. 



The Government is Helping the Farmer 

In the field of agriculture we have agencies and in- 
strumentalities, fortunately, such as no other Govern- 
ment in the world can show. The Department of 
Agriculture is undoubtedly the greatest practical and 
scientific agricultural organization in the world. 

Its total annual budget of $46,000,000 has been in- I 
creased during the last four years more than 72 per I 
cent. It has a staff of 18,000, including a large number 
of highly trained experts, and alongside of it stand the 
unique land-grant colleges, which are without example 
elsewhere, and the 69 State and Federal experiment 
stations. 

These colleges and experiment stations have a total 
endowment of plant and equipment of $172,000,000 I 
and an income of more than $35,000,000; with 10,271 
teachers, a resident student body of 125,000, and a 
vast additional number receiving instruction at their 
homes. County agents, joint officers of the Depart- 
ment of Agriculture and of the colleges, are everywhere 
co-operating with the farmers and assisting them. 

The number of extension workers under the Smith- 
Lever act and under the recent emergency legislation 
has grown to 5,500 men and women, working regularly 
in the various communities and taking to the farmer 
the latest scientific and practical information. 

Alongside these great public agencies stand the very 
effective voluntary organizations among the farmers 
themselves, which are more and more learning the best 
methods of co-operation and the best methods of putting 
to practical use the assistance derived from govern- 
mental sources. 

The banking legislation of the last two or three years 
has given the farmers access to the great lendable 
capital of the country, and it has become the duty 
both of the men in charge of the Federal reserve bank- 
ing system and of the farm loan banking system to see 



to it thai. the farmers obtain the credit, both short 
term and long term, to which they are not only entitled, 
but which it is imperatively necessary should be ex- 
tended to them if the present tasks of the country are 
to be adequately performed. Both by direct pur- 
chase of nitrates and by the establishment of plants to 
produce nitrates, the Government is doing its utmost 
f o assist in the problem of fertilization. 

The Department of Agriculture and other agencies 
are actively assisting the farmers to locate, safeguard 
and secure at cost an adequate supply of sound seed . 
The department has $2,500,000 available for this pur- 
pose now, and has asked Congress for $6,000,000 
more. 

The Labor Problem 

The labor problem is one of great difficulty, and some 
of the best agencies of the nation are addressing them- 
selves to the task of solving it, so far as it is possible 
to solve it. Farmers have not been exempted from 
the draft. I know that they would not wish to be. I 
take it for granted they would not wish to be put in a 
class by themselves in this respect. 

But the attention of the War Department has been 
very seriously centered upon the task of interfering 
with the labor of the farms as little as possible, and 
under the new draft regulations I believe that the farm- 
ers of the country will find that their supply of labor 
is very much less seriously drawn upon than it was under 
the first and initial draft, made before we had had oui 
present full experience in these perplexing matters. 

The supply of labor in all industries is a matter we 
must look to and are looking to with diligent care. 

And let me say that the stimulation of the agencies 
I have enumerated has been responded to by the 
farmers in splendid fashion. I dare say that you are 
aware that the farmers of this country are as efficient 
as any other farmers in the world. 



They do not produce more per acre than the farmers 
in Europe. It is not necessary that they should do so. 
It would perhaps be bad economy for them to attempt 
it. But they do produce by two or three or four 
times more per man, per unit of labor and capital, 
than the farmers of any European country. They are 
more alert and use more labor-saving devices than any 
other farmers in the world. 

Farmers Have Met War Demands 

And their response to the demands of the present 
emergency has been in every way remarkable. Last 
spring their planting exceeded by 12,000,000 acres the 
largest planting of any previous year, and the yields 
from the crops were record-breaking yields. 

In the fall of 1917 a wheat acreage of 42,170,000 was 
planted, which was 1,000,000 larger than for any pre- 
ceding year, 3,000,000 greater than the next largest, 
and 7,000,000 greater than the preceding five-year 
average. 

But I ought to say to you that it is not only neces- 
sary that these achievements should be repeated, but 
that they should be exceeded. I know what this ad- 
vice involves. It involves not only labor but sacrifice, 
the painstaking application of every bit of scientific 
knowledge and every tested practice that is available. 

It means the utmost economy, even to the point 
where the pinch comes. It means the kind of con- 
centration and self-sacrifice which is involved in the 
field of battle itself, where the object always looms 
greater than the individual. And the Government will 
help in every way that is possible. 

The Basis of Price Fixing 

The impression which prevails in some quarters that 

while the Government has sought to fix the prices of 

foodstuffs, it has not sought to fix other prices which 

determine the expenses of the farmer, is a mistaken one. 



As a matter of fact, the Government has actively 
and successfully regulated the prices of many funda- 
mental materials underlying all the industries of the 
country, and has regulated them not only for the pur- 
chases of the Government but also for the purchases 
of the general public; and I have every reason to believe 
that the Congress will extend the powers of the Govern- 
ment in this important and even essential matter, 
so that the tendency to profiteering which is showing 
itself in too many quarters may be effectively checked. 

In fixing the prices of foodstuffs the Government has 
sincerely tried to keep the interests of the farmer as 
much in mind as the interests of the communities 
which are to be served, but it is serving mankind as 
well as the farmer, and everything in these times of war 
takes on the rigid aspect of duty. 

The Opportunities of this Great Hour 

I will not appeal to you to continue and renew 
and increase your efforts. I do not believe that it is 
necessary to do so. I believe that you will do it with- 
out any word or appeal from me; because you under- 
stand as well as I do the needs and opportunities of this 
great horn-, when the fortunes of mankind everywhere 
seem about to be determined, and when America has 
the greatest opportunity she has ever had to make good 
her own freedom, and in making it good to lend a help- 
ing hand to men struggling for their freedom every- 
where. 

You remember that it was fanners from whom came 
the first shots at Lexington, that set aflame the Revo- 
lution that made. America free. I hope and believe 
that the farmers of America will willingly and con- 
spicuously stand by to win this war also. 

The toil, the intelligence, the energy, the foresight, 
the self-sacrifice and devotion of the farmers of America, 
will, I believe, bring to a triumphant conclusion this 
great last war for the emancipation of men from the 
control of arbitrary government and the selfishness of 
class legislation and control; and then, when the end 
has come, we may look each other in the face and be 
glad that we are Americans and have had the privilege 
to play such a part. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE 



I. RED WHITE AND BLUE SERIES 
1. How the War Came to America. 
3. National Service Handbook (15 cents). 

3. The Battle Line of Democracy (15 cents). 

4. President's Flag Day Address with Evidence of 

Germany's Plans. 

5. Conquest and Kultur. 

6. German War Practices: Part I. 

7. War Cyclopedia (25 cents). 

8. German Treatment of Conquered Territory. 

9. War, Labor, and Peace. Some Recent Addresses 

of the President. 

II. WAR INFORMATION SERIES 

101. The War Message and the Pacts Behind It. 

102. The Nation in Arms. 

103. The Government of Germany. 

104. The Great War: Prom Spectator to Participant. 

105. A War of Self-Defense. 

106. American Loyalty. By American Citizens of 

German Descent. 

107. German Translation of Number 106. 

108. American Interest in Popular Government 

Abroad. 

109. Home Reading Course for Citizen Soldiers. 

110. First Session of the War Congress. 

111. The German War Code. 

112. American and Allied Ideals. 

113. German Militarism and its German Critics. 

114. The War for Peace. 

115. Why America Fights Germany. 

116. The Study of the Great War: A Topical Outline. 

117. The Activities of the Committee on Public Infor- 

n mation. 

III. LOYALTY LEAFLETS 

201. Friendly Words to the Foreign Born. 

203. The Prussian System. 

203. Labor and the War. Address by President Wilson. 

204. A War Message to the Farmer. By President 

Wilson. 

205. Plain Issues of the War. By Elihu Root. 

206. Ways to Serve the Nation. By President Wilson. 

207. What Really Matters. 

IV. OFFICIAL BULLETIN. Subscription Price, 

$5.00 per year 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 
10 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. 



Loyalty Leaflets J, 



Jt, No. 2 



The 
Prussian System 




FREDERIC C. WALCOTT 

of the United States Food Administration 



)%~ZL^ ljL t 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE 

_^_ 

Any Two Books Sent Free on Application 

Except as Noted. 

Use Official Request Blanks When Available. 



I. RED, WHITE AND BLUE SERIES. 

1. How the War Came to America. 

2. National Service Handbook (15 cents). 

3. The Battle Line of Democracy (15 cents) 

4. President's Flag Day Speech with Evidence of Ger 
many's Plans. 



5. Conquest and Kultur. 

6. German War Practices 

7. The War Cyclopedia ( 

8. German War Practices: Part II. 



7. The War Cyclopedia (25 cents). i M «* 



ft* 



II. WAR INFORMATION SERIES. 

101. The War Message and the Facts Behind It. 

102. The Nation in Arms. 

103. The Government of Germany. 

104. The Great War: From Spectator to Participant. 

105. A War of Self -Defense. 

106. American Loyalty. By American Citizens of German 

Descent. 

107. German Translation of Number 6. 

108. American Interest in Popular Government Abroad. 

109. Home Reading Course for Citizen Soldiers. 

110. First Session of the War Congress. 

III. OFFICIAL BULLETIN. 

Subscription Price, $5.00 per year. 

IV. LOYALTY LEAFLETS. 

201. Friendly Words to the Foreign Bom. 

202. The Prussian System. 

203. Labor and the War. 

Address 

COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

10 Jackson Place, Washington, D. C. 

fi!)V 1Q iM& 



The Prussian System 



Told by F. C. Walcott at Conference ot 

Food Administration Agents , 

Sept. 12, 1917 



This I have seen. I could not believe it unless I had 
seen it through and through. For several weeks I 
lived with it; I went all about it and back of it; inside 
and out of it was shown to me — until finally I came to 
realize that the incredible was true. It is monstrous, 
it is unthinkable, but it exists. It is the Prussian 
system. 

A year ago I went to Poland to learn its facts con- 
cerning the remnant of a people that had been deci- 
mated by war. The country had been twice devas- 
tated. First the Russian army swept through it, and 
then the Germans. Along the roadside from Warsaw 
to Pinsk, the present firing line, a distance of 230 
miles, near half a million people had died of hunger and 
cold. The way was strewn with their bones picked 
clean by the crows. With their usual thrift the 
Germans were collecting the larger bones to be milled 
into fertilizer, but finger and toe bones lay on the 
ground with the mud covered and rain soaked clothing. 

Wicker baskets were scattered along the way — the 
basket in which the baby swings from the rafter in 
every peasant home. Every mile there were scores of 
them, each one telling of a death. I started to count, 
but after a little I had to give it up, there were so many. 

That is the desolation one saw along the great road 
from Warsaw to Pinsk, mile after mile, more than two 
hundred miles. They told me a million people were 
made homeless in six weeks of the German drive in 
August and September, 1916. They told me four 
hundred thousand died on the way. The rest, scarcely 
half alive, got through with the Russian army. Many 
of these have been sent to Siberia; it is these people 
whom the Paderewski committee is trying to relieve. 



In the refugee camps, 300,000 survivors of the flight 
were gathered by the Germans, members of broken 
families. They were lodged in jerry-built barracks, 
scarcely waterproof, unlighted, unwarmed in the dead 
of winter. Their clothes, where the buttons were lost, 
were sewed on. There were no conveniences, they 
had not even been able to wash for weeks. Filth and 
infection from vermin were spreading. They were 
famished, their daily ration a cup of soup and a piece 
of bread as big as my fist. 

In Warsaw, which had not been destroyed, a city of 
one million inhabitants, one of the most prosperous 
cities of Europe before the war, the streets were lined 
with people in the pangs of starvation. Famished and 
rain-soaked, they squatted there, with their elbows on 
their knees or leaning against the buildings, too feeble 
to lift a hand for a bit of money or a morsel of bread 
if one offered it, perishing of hunger and cold. Charity 
did what it could. The rich gave all that they had, the 
poor shared their last crust. Hundreds of thousands 
were perishing. Day and night the picture is before 
my eyes — a people starving, a nation dying. 

In that situation, the German commander issued a 
proclamation. Every able-bodied Pole was bidden 
to Germany to work. If any refused, let no other 
Pole give him to eat, not so much as a mouthful, under 
penalty of German military law. 

This is the choice the German Government gives to 
the conquered Pole, to the husband and father of a 
starving family: Leave your family to die or survive as 
the case may be. Leave your country, which is 
destroyed, to work in Germany for its further destruc- 
tion. If you are obstinate, we shall see that you surely 
starve. 

Staying with his folk, he is doomed and they are not 
saved; the father and husband can do nothing for 
them, he only adds to their risk and suffering. Leav- 
ing them, he will be cut off from his family, they may 
never hear from him again nor he from them. Ger- 
many will set him to work that a German workman 
may be released to fight against his own land and 
people. He shall be lodged in barracks, behind 
barbed wire entanglements, under armed guard. He 
shall sleep on the bare ground with a single thin 



blanket. Ho shall ho scantily fed and his earnings 
shall be taken from him to pay for his food. 

That is the choice which the German Government 
offers to a proud, sensitive, high-strung people. 
Death or slavery. 

When a Pole gave me that proclamation, I was 
boiling. But I had to restrain myself. I was practi- 
cally the only foreign civilian in the country and I 
wanted to get food to the people. That was what I 
was there for and I must not for any cause jeopardize 
the undertaking. I asked Governor General von 
Beseler, "Can this be true?" 

"Really, I cannot say," he replied. "I have signed 
so many proclamations; ask General von Kries." 

So I asked General von Kries. "General, this is a 
civilized people. Can this be true?" 

"Yes," he said, "it is true" — with an air of adding, 
Why not? 

I "dared not trust myself to speak; I turned to go. 
"Wait," he said. And he explained to me how Ger- 
many, official Germany, regards the state of subject 
peoples. 

Even now I find it hard to describe in comprehensible 
terms the mind of official Germany, which dominates 
and shapes all German thought and action. Yet it is 
as hard, as clear-cut, as real as any material thing. I 
saw it in Poland, I saw the same thing in Belgium, I 
hear of it in Serbia and Roumania. For weeks it was 
always before me, always, the same. Officers talked 
freely, frankly, directly. All the staff officers have 
the same view. 

Let me try to tell it, as General von Kries told me, 
in Poland, in the midst of a dying nation. Germany 
is destined to rule the world, or at least a great part of 
it. The German people are so much human material 
for building the German State, other people do not 
count. All is for the glory and might of the German 
State. The lives of human beings are to be conserved 
only if it makes for the State's advancement, their 
lives are to be sacrificed if it is to the State's advantage. 
The State is all, the people are nothing. 

Conquered people signify little in the German ac- 
count. Life, liberty, happiness, human sentiment, 
family ties, grace and generous impulse, these have 



no place beside the one concern, the greatness of the 
German State. 

Starvation must excite no pity; sympathy must not 
be allowed, if it hampers the main design of promoting 
Germany's ends. 

"Starvation is here," said General von Kries. 
"Candidly, we would like to see it relieved; we fear our 
soldiers may be unfavorably affected by the things 
that they see. But since it is here, starvation must 
serve our purpose. So we set it to work for Germany. 
By starvation we can accomplish in two or three years 
in East Poland more than we have in West Poland, 
which is East Prussia, in the last hundred years. 
With that in view, we propose to turn this force to 
our advantage." 

"This country is meant for Germany," continued 
the keeper of starving Poland. "It is a rich alluvial 
country which Germany has needed for some genera- 
tions. We propose to remove the able-bodied working 
Poles from this country. It leaves it open for the 
inflow of German working people as fast as we can 
spare them. They will occupy it and work it." 

Then, with a cunning smile: "Can't you see how it 
works out? By and by we shall give back freedom to 
Poland. When that happens Poland will appear 
automatically as a German province." 

In Belgium, General von Bissing told me exactly 
the same thing. "If the relief of Belgium breaks down 
we can force the industrial population into Germany 
through starvation, and colonize other Belgians in 
Mesopotamia where we have planned large irrigation 
works. Germans will then overrun Belgium. Then 
when the war is over and freedom is given back to 
Belgium, it will be a German Belgium that is restored. 
Belgium will be a German province and we have 
Antwerp — which is what we are after." 

In Poland, the able-bodied men are being removed to 
relieve the German workman and make the land vacant 
for Germany. In Belgium, the men are deported 
that the country may be a German colony. In Serbia, 
where three-fourths of a million people out of three 
millions have perished miserably in the last three years, 
Germany hardens its heart, shuts its eyes to the 
suffering, thinks only of Germany's gain. In Armenia, 
six hundred thousand people were slain in cold blood by 



Kurds and Turks under the domination and leadership 
oi German officers — Germany looking on, indifferent to 
the horror and woe, intent only on seizing the oppor- 
tunity thus given. War, famine, pestilence — these 
bring to the German mind no appeal for humane 
effort, only the resolution to profit from them to the 
utmost that the German State may be powerful and 
great. 

That is not all. Removing the men, that the land 
may be vacant for German occupation, that German 
stock may replace Belgians, Poles, Serbians, Armen- 
ians, and now Roumanians, Germany does more. 
Women left captive are enslaved. Germany makes 
all manner of lust its instrumentality. 

The other day a friend of mine told me of a man just 
returned from Northern France. "I cannot tell you 
the details," he said; "man to man, I don't want to 
repeat what I heard." Some of the things he did tell 
— shocking mutilation and moral murder. He told of 
women, by the score, in occupied territory of Northern 
France, prisoned in underground dungeons, tethered 
for the use of their bodies by officers and men. 

If this is not a piece of the Prussian system, it 
is the logical product of disregard of the rights of 
others. 

Such is the German mind as it was disclosed to me in 
several weeks' contact with officers of the staff. 

Treaties are scraps of paper, if they hinder German 
aims. 

Treachery is condoned and praised, if it falls in 
with German interest. 

Men, lands, countries are German prizes. 

Populations are to be destroyed or enslaved so 
Germany may gain. 

Women are Germany's prey, children are spoils of 
war. 

God gave Germany the Hohenzollern, and together 
they are destined to rule Europe and, eventually, the 
world — thus reasons the Kaiser. 

Coolly, deliberately, officers of the German staff, 
permeated by this monstrous philosophy, discuss the 
denationalization of peoples, the destruction of na- 
tions, the undoing of other civilizations, for Germany's 
account. 



In all the world such a thing has never been. The 1 
human mind has never conceived the like. Even 
among barbarians, the thing would be incredible. 
The mind can scarcely grasp the fact that these things; 
are proposed and done by a modern government pro- 
fessedly a Christian government in the family ol 
civilized nations. 

This system has got to be rooted out. If it takes 
everything in the world, if it takes every one of us, 
this abomination must be overthrown. It must be 
ended or the world is not worth living in. No matter 
how long it takes, no matter how much it costs, we 
must endure to the end with agonized France, with 
imperiled Britain, with shattered Belgium, with 
shaken Russia. 

We must hope that Germany will have a new birth 
as Russia is being reborn. We must pray, as W€ 
fight against the evil that is in Germany, that the 
good which is in Germany may somehow prevail.! 
We must trust that in the end a Germany really great 
with the strength of a wonderful race may find its 
place as one of the brotherhood of nations in the new 
world that is to be. 

The responsibility of success or failure rests now 
upon our shoulders; the eyes of the world are anxiously 
watching us. Are we going to be able to rise to the 
emergency, throw off our inefficiency, and prove that 
Democracy is safe for the world? 



Loyalty Leaflets f ? f No. 3 

Labor and the 
War 

President Wilson's Address to the 
American Federation of Labor 




Delivered at Buffalo, N. Y., November 12, 1917 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 



Labor and the War 



ADDRESS DELIVERED BY PRESIDENT WILSON TO 
THE CONVENTION OF THE AMERICAN FED- 
ERATION OF LABOR, AT BUFFALO, N. Y., 
NOVEMBER 12, 1917. 



Mr. President, Delegates of the American 
Federation of Labor, Ladies and Gentlemen: 

I esteem it a great privilege and a real 
honor to be thus admitted to your public 
counsels. When your executive committee 
paid me the compliment of inviting me here, 
I gladly accepted the invitation because it 
seems to me that this, above all other times 
in our history, is the time for common counsel, 
for the drawing together not only of the 
energies but of the minds of the Nation. 
I thought that it was a welcome opportunity 
for disclosing to you some of the thoughts 
that have been gathering in my mind during 
the last momentous months. 

Critical Time in History 

I am introduced to you as the President 
of the United States, and yet I would be 
pleased if you would put the thought of the 



\ office into the background and regard me as 

v one of your fellow citizens who has come 

* here to speak, not the words of authority, 

but the words of counsel; the words which 

^ men should speak to one another who wish 

to be frank in a moment more critical perhaps 

than the history of the world has ever yet 

known; a moment when it is every man's 

duty to forget himself, to forget his own 

interest, to fill himself with the nobility 

of a great national and world conception, 

and act upon a new platform elevated above 

the ordinary affairs of life and lifted to 

where men have views of the long destiny 

of mankind. 

I think that in order to realize just what 
this moment of counsel is it is very desirable 
that we should remind ourselves just how 
this war came about and just what it is for. 
You can explain most wars very simply, 
but the explanation of this is not so simple. 
Its roots run deep into all the obscure soils 
of history, and in my view this is the last 
decisive issue between the old principles of 
power and the new principles of freedom. 

War Started by Germany 

The war was started by Germany. Her 

authorities deny that they started it, but 

I am willing to let the statement I have just 

made await the verdict of history. And the 



thing that needs to be explained is why 
Germany started the war. Remember what 
the position of Germany in the world was — 
as enviable a position as any nation has 
ever occupied. The whole world stood at 
admiration of her wonderful intellectual and 
material achievements. All the intellectual 
men of the world went to school to her. As a 
university man I have been surrounded by 
men trained in Germany, men who had 
resorted to Germany because nowhere else 
could they get such thorough and searching 
training, particularly in the principles of 
science and the principles that underlie 
modern material achievement. Her men of 
science had made her industries perhaps the 
most competent industries of the world, 
and the label "Made in Germany" was a 
guarantee of good workmanship and of 
sound material. She had access to all the 
markets of the world, and every other who 
traded in those markets feared Germany 
because of her effective and almost irresistible 
competition. She had a "place in the sun." 

Germany's Industrial Growth 
Why was she not satisfied? What more 
did she want? There was nothing in the 
world of peace that she did not already 
have and have in abundance. We boast of 
the extraordinary pace of American advance- 



ment. We show with pride the statistics 
of the increase of our industries -and of the 
population of our cities. Well, those statis- 
tics did not match the recent statistics of 
Germany. Her old cities took on youth, 
grew faster than any American cities ever 
grew. Her old industries opened their eyes 
and saw a new world and went out for its 
conquest. And yet the authorities of Ger- 
many were not satisfied. You have one part 
of the answer to the question why she was 
not satisfied in her methods of competition. 
There is no important industry in Germany 
upon which the Government has not laid 
its hands, to direct it and, when necessity 
arose, control it; and you have only to ask 
any man whom you meet who is familiar 
with the conditions that prevailed before the 
war in the matter of national competition to 
find out the methods of competition which 
the German manufacturers and exporters 
used under the patronage and support of the 
Government of Germany. You will find 
that they were the same sorts of competition 
that we have tried to prevent by law within 
our own borders. If they could not sell 
their goods cheaper than we could sell ours at 
a profit to themselves they could get a 
subsidy from the Government which made it 
possible to sell them cheaper anyhow, and 
the conditions of competition were thus 

5 



controlled in large measure by the German 
Government itself. 

But that did not satisfy the German 
Government. All the while there was lying 
behind its thought in its dreams of the future 
a political control which would enable it in 
the long run to dominate the labor and the 
industry of the world. They were not 
content with success by superior achievement; 
they wanted success by authority. I suppose 
very few of you have thought much about 
the Berlin-to-Bagdad railway. The Berlin- 
Bagdad railway was constructed in order 
to run the threat of force down the flank 
of the industrial undertakings of half a dozen 
other countries; so that when German com- 
petition came in it would not be resisted too 
far, because there was always the possibility 
of getting German armies into the heart of 
that country quicker than any other armies 
could be got there. 

Look at the map of Europe now ! Germany 
in thrusting upon us again and again the 
discussion of peace, talks about what? Talks 
about Belgium; talks about northern France; 
talks about Alsace-Lorraine. Well, those 
are deeply interesting subjects to us and to 
them, but they are not talking about the 
heart of the matter. Take the map and 
look at it. Germany has absolute control of 
Austria-Hungary, practical control of the 



Balkan States, control of Turkey, control of 
Asia Minor. I saw a map in which the 
whole thing was printed in appropriate black 
the other clay, and the black stretched all the 
way from Hamburg to Bagdad — the bulk 
of German power inserted into the heart of 
the world. If she can keep that, she has 
kept all that her dreams contemplated when 
the war began. If she can keep that, her 
power can disturb the world as long as she 
keeps it, always provided, for I feel bound 
to put this proviso in — always provided the 
present influences that control the German 
Government continue to control it. I believe 
that the spirit of freedom can get into the 
hearts of Germans and find as fine a welcome 
there as it can find in any other hearts, but 
the spirit of freedom does not suit the plans 
of the pan-Germans. Power can not be 
used with concentrated force against free 
peoples if it is used by free people. 

Insidious Peace Intrigues 

You know how many intimations come 
to us from one of the Central Powers that it 
is more anxious for peace than the chief 
Central Power, and you know that it means 
that the people in that Central Power know 
that if the war ends as it stands they will in 
effect themselves be vassals of Germany, 

7 



notwithstanding that their populations are 
compounded of all the peoples of that part 
of the world, and notwithstanding the fact 
that they do not wish in their pride and 
proper spirit of nationality to be so absorbed 
and dominated. Germany is determined 
that the political power of the world shall 
belong to her. There have been such 
ambitions before. They have been in part 
realized, but never before have those ambi- 
tions been based upon so exact and precise 
and scientific a plan of domination. 

May I not say that it is amazing to me 
that any group of persons should be so ill- 
informed as to suppose, as some groups in 
Russia apparently suppose, that any reforms 
planned in the interest of the people can live 
in the presence of a Germany powerful 
enough to undermine or overthrow them by 
intrigue or force? Any body of free men 
that compounds with the present German 
Government is compounding for its own 
destruction. But that is not the whole of 
the story. Any man in America or anywhere 
else that supposes that the free industry 
and enterprise of the world can continue 
if the pan-German plan is achieved and 
German power fastened upon the world is as 
fatuous as the dreamers in Russia. What 
I am opposed to is not the feeling of the 
pacifists, but their stupidity. My heart 



is with them, but my mind has a contempt 
for them. I want peace, but I know how 
to get it, and they do not. 

You will notice that I sent a friend of mine, 
Col. House, to Europe, who is as great a lover 
of peace as any man in the world, but I 
didn't send him on a peace mission yet. I 
sent him to take part in a conference as 
to how the war was to be won, and he knows, 
as I know, that that is the way to get peace 
if you want it for more than a few minutes. 

Production Must be Increased 
All of this is a preface to the conference 
that I have referred to with regard to what 
we are going to do. If we are true friends 
of freedom of our own or anybody else's, we 
will see that the power of this country and 
the productivity of this country is raised 
to its absolute maximum, and that absolutely 
nobody is allowed to stand in the way of it. 
When I say that nobody is allowed to stand in 
the way I do not mean that they shall be 
prevented by the power of the Government 
but by the power of the American spirit. 
Our duty, if we are to do this great thing and 
show America to be what we believe her to 
be — -the greatest hope and energy of the 
world — is to stand together night and day 
until the job is finished. 



Labor Must be Free 
While we are fighting for freedom we must 
see, among other things, that labor is free, 
and that means a number of interesting 
things. It means not only that we must do 
what we have declared our purpose to do, see 
that the conditions of labor are not rendered 
more onerous by the war, but also that we 
shall see to it that the instrumentalities by 
which the conditions of labor are improved, 
are not blocked or checked. That we must 
do. That has been the matter about which 
I have taken pleasure in conferring from 
time to time with your president, Mr. 
Gompers; and if I may be permitted to do 
so, I want to express my admiration of his 
patriotic courage, his large vision, and his 
statesmanlike sense of what has to be done. 
I like to lay my mind alongside of a mind 
that knows how to pull in harness. The 
horses that kick over the traces will have 
to be put in corral. 

Now, to stand together means that nobody 
must interrupt the processes of our energy if 
the interruption can possibly be avoided 
without the absolute invasion of freedom. 
To put it concretely, that means this: Nobody 
has a right to stop the processes of labor 
until all the methods of conciliation and 
settlement have been exhausted. And I 
10 



might as well say right hero that I am not 
talking to you alone. You sometimes stop 
the courses of labor, but there are others 
who do the same; and I believe that I am 
speaking, not from my own experience only, 
but from the experience of others, when I 
say that you are reasonable in a larger 
number of cases than the capitalists. I am 
not saying these things to them personally 
yet, because I have not had a chance; but 
they have to be said, not in any spirit of 
criticism, but in order to clear the atmosphere 
and come down to business. Everybody on 
both sides has now got to transact business, 
and a settlement is never impossible when 
both sides want to do the square and right 
thing. 

Labor Disputes Must be Settled in 
Conferences 

Moreover, a settlement is always hard to 
avoid when the parties can be brought face 
to face. I can differ from a man much more 
radically when he is not in the room than I 
can when he is in the room, because then the 
awkward thing is he can come back at me 
and answer what I say. It is always danger- 
ous for a man to have the floor entirely to 
himself. Therefore, we must insist in every 
instance that the parties come into each 
other's presence and there discuss the issues 
11 



between them and not separately in places 
which have no communication with each 
other. I always like to remind myself of a 
delightful saying of an Englishman of the 
past generation, Charles Lamb. He stut- 
tered a little bit, -and once when he was with 
a group of friends he spoke very harshly of 
some man who was not present. One of his 
friends said: "Why, Charles, I didn't know 
that you knew so and so." "O-o-oh," he 
said, "I-I d-d-don't; I-I can't h-h-hate a 
m-m-man I-I know." There is a great deal 
of human nature, of very pleasant human 
nature, in the saying. It is hard to hate a 
man you know. I may admit, parentheti- 
cally, that there are some politicians whose 
methods I do not at all believe in, but they 
are jolly good fellows, and if they only would 
not talk the wrong kind of politics, I would 
love to be with them. 

No Sympathy With Mob Spirit 
So it is all along the line, in serious matters 
and things less serious. We are all of the 
same clay and spirit, and we can get together 
if we desire to get together. Therefore, my 
counsel to you is this: Let us show ourselves 
Americans by showing that we do not want 
to go off in separate camps or groups by our- 
selves, but that we want to co-operate with all 
other classes and all other groups in the com- 
12 



mon enterprise which is to release the spirits 
of the world from bondage. I would be 
willing to set that up as the final test of an 
American. That is the meaning of de- 
mocracy. I have been very much distressed, 
my fellow citizens, by some of the things that 
have happened recently. The mob spirit is 
displaying itself here and there in this coun- 
try. I have no sympathy with what some 
men are saying, but I have no sympathy 
with the men who take their punishment 
into their own hands; and I want to say to 
every man who does join such a mob that 
I do not recognize him as worthy of the 
free institutions of the United States. There 
are some organizations in this country whose 
object is anarchy and the destruction of law, 
but I would not meet their efforts by making 
myself partner in destroying the law. I 
despise and hate their purposes as much as 
any man, but I respect the ancient processes 
of justice; and I would be too proud not to 
see them done justice, however wrong they 
are. 

Must Obey Common Counsel 

So I want to utter my earnest protest 
against any manifestation of the spirit of 
lawlessness anywhere or in any cause. Why, 
gentlemen, look what it means. We claim to 
be the greatest democratic people in the 
12 



world, and democracy means first of all 
that we can govern ourselves. If our men 
have not self-control, then they are not 
capable of that great thing which we call 
democratic government. A man who takes 
the law into his own hands is not the right 
man to co-operate in any formation or de- 
velopment of law and institutions, and some 
of the processes by which the struggle 
between capital and labor is carried on are 
processes that come very near to taking the 
law into your own hands. I do not mean 
for a moment to compare it with what I have 
just been speaking of, but I want you to see 
that they are mere gradations in this mani- 
festation of the unwillingness to co-operate, 
and that the fundamental lesson of the whole 
situation is that we must not only take com- 
mon counsel, but that we must yield to and 
obey common counsel. Not all of the in- 
strumentalities for this are at hand. I am 
hopeful that in the very near future new 
instrumentalities may be organized by which 
we can see to it that various things that are 
now going on ought not to go on. There are 
various processes of the dilution of labor and 
the unnecessary substitution of labor and the 
bidding in distant markets and unfairly 
upsetting the whole competition of labor 
which ought not to go on. I mean now on 
the part of employers, and we must interject 



into this some instrumentality of co-operation 
by which the fair thing will be done all 
around. I am hopeful that some such instru- 
mentalities may be devised, but whether 
they are or not, we must use those that we 
have and upon every occasion where it is 
necessary have such an instrumentality orig- 
inated upon that occasion. 

So, my fellow citizens, the reason I came 
away from Washington is that I sometimes 
get lonely down there. There are so many 
people in Washington who know things that 
are not so, and there are so few people who 
know anything about what the people of the 
United States are thinking about. I have to 
come away and get reminded of the rest of 
the country. I have to come away and talk 
to men who are up against the real thing, and 
say to them, "I am with you if you are with 
me." And the only test of being with me is 
not to think about me personally at all, but 
merely to think of me as the expression for 
the time being of the power and dignity and 
hope of the United States. 



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By ELIHU ROOT 

Ex-Secretary of State of the United States 



THIS is a war of defense. It is perfectly 
described in the words of the Constitu- 
tion which established this Nation: 
"To provide for the common defense," and 
"To secure the blessings of liberty to our- 
selves and our posterity.' ' 

The national defense demands not merely 
force, but intelligence. It requires foresight, 
consideration of the policies and purposes 
of other nations, understanding of the in- 
evitable or probable consequences of the acts 
of other nations, judgment as to the time 
when successful defense may be made, and 
when it will be too late, and prompt action 
before it is too late. 

By entering this war in April, the United 
States availed itself of the very last oppor- 
tunity to defend itself against subjection to 
German power before it was too late to 
defend itself successfully. 

For many years we have pursued our 
peaceful course of internal development, 
protected in a variety of ways. We have been 
protected by the law of nations to which 
all civilized Governments have professed 

* Part of an address delivered at a war mass meeting in Chicago, 
September 14, 1917. 



their allegiance. So long as we committed 
no injustice ourselves we could not be at- 
tacked without a violation of that law. We 
were protected by a series of treaties under 
which all the principal nations of the earth 
agreed to respect our rights and to maintain 
friendship with us. We were protected by 
an extensive system of arbitration created by 
or consequent upon, the peace conferences at 
The Hague, and under which all contro- 
versies arising under the law and under 
treaties were to be settled peaceably, by 
arbitration and not by force. We were 
protected by the broad expanse of ocean 
separating us from all great military powers, 
and by the bold assertion of the Monroe 
Doctrine, that if any of those powers under- 
took to overpass the ocean and establish 
itself upon these western continents, that 
action would be regarded as dangerous to 
the peace and safety of the United States, 
and would call upon us to act in our defense. 
We were protected by the fact that the policy 
and the fleet of Great Britain were well 
known to support the Monroe Doctrine. 
We were protected by the delicate balance 
of power in Europe, which made it seem 
not worth while for any power to engage 
in a conflict here at the risk of suffering 
from its rivals there. 

All these protections were swept away by 
the war which began in Europe in 1914. 
The war was begun by the concerted action 
of Germany and Austria — the invasion of 
Serbia by Austria on the east, and the in- 
vasion of Luxemburg and Belgium by Ger- 
many on the west. Both invasions were in 



violation of the law of nations, and in vio- 
lation of the faith of treaties. 

Everybody knew that Russia was bound 
in good faith to come to the relief of Serbia, 
that France was bound by treaty to come to 
the aid of Russia, that England was bound 
by treaty to come to the aid of Belgium, so 
that the invasion of these two small States 
was the beginning of a general European war. 

These acts, which have drenched the world 
with blood, were defended and justified in the 
bold avowal of the German Government 
that the interests of the German State were 
superior to the obligations of law and the 
faith of treaties; that no law or treaty was 
binding upon Germany which it was for the 
interest of Germany to violate. 

All pretense of obedience to the law of 
nations and of respect for solemn promises 
was thrown off; and in lieu of that system of 
lawful and moral restraint upon power which 
Christian civilization has been building up 
for a century, was reinstated the cynical 
philosophy of Frederick the Great, the 
greatest of the Hohenzollerns, who declared: 

"If possible, the powers of Europe should 
be made envious against one another, in 
order to give occasion for a coup when the 
opportunity arises." 

"If a ruler is obliged to sacrifice his own 
person for the welfare of his subjects, he 
is all the more obliged to sacrifice treaty 
engagements, the continuance of which 
would be harmful to his country . Is it better 
that a nation should perish or that a sovereign 
should break his treaty?" 



" Statesmanship can be reduced to three 
principles: — First, to maintain your power, 
and, according to circumstances, to extend it. 
Second, to form an alliance only for your 
own advantage . Third , to command fear and 
respect, even in the most disastrous times." 

"Do not be ashamed of making interested 
alliances from which you yourself can derive 
the whole advantage. Do not make the 
foolish mistake of not breaking them when 
you believe your interests require it. . . . 
Above all, uphold the following maxim: — 
To despoil your neighbors is to deprive them 
of the means of injuring you." 

"When he is about to conclude a treaty 
with some foreign power, if a sovereign 
remembers he is a Christian he is lost." 

From 1914 until the present, in a war 
waged with a revolting barbarity unequaled 
since the conquests of Genghis Kahn, Ger- 
many has violated every rule agreed upon by 
civilized nations in modern times to mitigate 
the barbarities of war or to protect the 
rights of non-combatants and neutrals. 

She had no grievance against Belgium, 
except that Belgium stood upon her ad- 
mitted rights and refused to break the faith 
of her treaties by consenting that the neu- 
trality of her territory should be violated to 
give Germany an avenue for the attack 
upon France. 

The German Kaiser has taken possession 
of the territory of Belgium and subjected her 
people to the hard yoke of a brutal soldiery. 

He has extorted vast sums from her 
peaceful cities. 

Q 



He has burned her towns and battered 
down her noble churches. 

He has stripped the Belgium factories of 
their machinery, and deprived them of the 
raw materials of manufacture. 

He has carried away her workmen by tens 
of thousands into slavery, and her women 
into worse than slavery. 

He has slain peaceful non-combatants by 
the hundred, undeterred by the helplessness 
of age, of infancy, or of womanhood. 

He has done the same in Northern France, 
in Poland, in Serbia, in Roumania. 

In all of these countries women have been 
outraged by the thousands, by tens of 
thousands; and who ever heard of a German 
soldier being punished for rape, or robbery, 
or murder? 

These revolting outrages upon humanity 
and law are not the casual incidents of war; 
they are the results of a settled policy of 
frightfulness answering to the maxim of the 
Great Frederick to "Command respect 
through fear." 

Why were these things done by Germany? 
The answer rests upon the accumulated 
evidence of German acts and German words, 
so conclusive that no pretence can cover it, 
no sophistry can disguise it. The answer is, 
that this war was begun and these crimes 
against humanity were done because Ger- 
many was pursuing the hereditary policy of the 
Hohenzollerns, and following the instincts 
of the arrogant military caste which rules 
Prussia, to grasp the overlordship of the 
civilized world and establish an empire in 



which she should play the role of ancient 
Rome. 

They were done because Prussian mili- 
tarism still pursues the policy of power 
through conquest, of aggrandizement through 
force and fear, which in little more than two 
centuries has brought the puny Mark of 
Brandenburg, with its million and a half 
of people, to the control of a vast empire — 
the greatest armed force of the modern 
world. 

It now appears beyond all possibility of 
doubt that this war was made by Germany 
in pursuit of a long and settled purpose. 
For many years she had been preparing to 
do exactly what she has done, with a thor- 
oughness, a perfection of plans, and a vast- 
ness of provision in men, munitions, and 
supplies, never before equaled or approached 
in human history. 

She brought on the war when she chose, 
because she chose, in the belief that she 
could conquer the earth, nation by nation. 

All nations are egotistical, all peoples 
think most highly of their own qualities, 
and regard other peoples as inferior; but the 
egotism of the ruling class in Prussia is beyond 
all example, and it is active and aggressive. 
They believe that Germany is entitled to 
rule the world by virtue of her superiority 
in alb those qualities which they include 
under the term Kultur, and by reason of 
her power to compel submission by the 
sword. 

That belief does not evaporate in theory. 
It is translated into action, and this war 
is the action which results. This belief in 



national superiority and the right to assert 
it everywhere is a tradition from the Great 
Frederick. It has been instilled into the 
minds of the German people through all the 
universities and schools . It has been preached 
from her pulpits and taught by her phi- 
losophers and historians. It has been main- 
tained by her Government, and it will never 
cease to furnish the motive for the people 
of Prussia, so long as German power enables 
the military autocracy of Prussia to act 
upon it with success. 

Plainly, if the power of the German 
Government is to continue, America can no 
longer look for protection to the law of nations, 
or the faith of treaties, or the instincts of 
humanity, or the restraints of modern 
civilization. 

Plainly, also, if we had stayed out of the 
war, and Germany had won, there would 
no longer have been a balance of power in 
Europe, or a British fleet to support the 
Monroe Doctrine and protect America. 

Does any one indulge in the foolish assump- 
tion that Germany would not then have ex- 
tended her lust for power by conquest, to the 
American continent? Let him consider what 
it is for which the nations of Europe have 
been chiefly contending for centuries past. 
It has been for colonies. It has been to 
bring the unoccupied or weakly held spaces 
of the earth under their flags and their po- 
litical control, in order to increase their trade 
and their power. Spain, Holland, Portugal, 
England, France, have all had their turn, and 
have covered the earth with their possessions . 
For thirty years Germany, the last comer, 



has been pressing forward with feverish 
activity the acquisition of stations for her 
power on every coast and every sea, restive 
and resentful because she has been obliged 
to take what others have left. 

Europe, Asia, and Africa have been taken 
up. The Americas alone remain. Here in 
the vast and undefended spaces of the New 
World, fraught with potential wealth in- 
calculable, Germany could "find her place 
in the sun," to use her Emperor's phrase; 
Germany should find her "liberty of national 
evolution," to use his phrase again. Every 
traditional policy, every instinct of preda- 
tory Prussia, would urge her into this new 
field of aggrandizement. 

What would prevent? The Monroe Doc- 
trine? Yes. But what is the Monroe Doc- 
trine against a nation which respects only 
force, unless it can be maintained by force? 
We already know how the German Govern- 
ment feels about the Monroe Doctrine. 
Bismarck declared it to be a piece of colossal 
impudence; and when President Roosevelt 
interfered to assert the doctrine for the pro- 
tection of Venezuela, the present Kaiser 
declared that if he then had a larger navy 
he would have taken America by the scruff of 
the neck. 

If we had stayed out of the war, and 
Germany had won, we should have had to 
defend the Monroe Doctrine by force, or 
abandon it; and if we abandoned it, there 
would have been a German naval base in the 
Caribbean commanding the Panama Canal, 
depriving us of that strategic line which 
10 



unites our eastern and western coasts, and 
depriving us of the protection which the 
expanse of ocean once gave. And an America 
unable or unwilling to protect herself against 
the establishment of a German naval base 
in the Caribbean would lie at the mercy of 
Germany, subject to Germany's orders. 
America's independence would be gone unless 
she was ready to fight for it, and her security 
would henceforth be, not a security of free- 
dom, but only a security purchased by sub- 
mission. 

But if America had stayed out of the war 
and Germany had won, could we have 
defended the Monroe Doctrine? Could we 
have maintained our independence? For an 
answer to this question consider what we 
have been doing since the second of April 
last, when war was declared. Congress 
has been in continuous session, passing with 
unprecedented rapidity laws containing grants 
of power and of money unexampled in our 
history. The executive establishment has 
been straining every nerve to prepare for 
war. The ablest and strongest leaders of 
industrial activity have been called from all 
parts of the country to aid the Government. 
The people of the country have generously 
responded with noble loyalty and enthusiasm 
to the call for the surrender of money and of 
customary rights, and the supply of men, to 
the service of the country. Nearly half 
a year has passed, and still we are not 
ready to fight. I am not blaming the Govern- 
ment. It was inevitable. Preparation for 
modern war cannot be made briefly or 
speedily. It requires time, long periods of 



time ; and the more oj|acjeful and unprepared 
for war a democracy is, the longer is the 
time required. 

It would have required just as long for 
America to prepare for war if we had stayed 
out of this war, and Germany had won, and 
we had undertaken then to defend the Monroe 
Doctrine, or to defend our coasts when we 
had lost the protection of the Monroe Doc- 
trine. Month after month would have 
passed with no adequate army ready to fight, 
just as these recent months have passed. 
But what would Germany have been doing 
to us in the meantime? How long would it 
have been before our attempts at preparation 
would have been stopped by German arms? 
A country that is forced to defend itself 
against the aggression of a military autocracy, 
always prepared for war, must itself be 
prepared for war beforehand, or it never will 
have the opportunity to prepare. 

The history, the character, the avowed 
principles of action, the manifest and un- 
disguised purposes of the German autocracy, 
made it clear and certain that if America 
stayed out of the Great War, and Germany 
won, America would forthwith be required 
to defend herself, and would be unable 
to defend herself, against the same lust for 
conquest, the same will to dominate the 
world, which has made Europe a bloody 
shambles. 

When Germany did actually apply her 
principles of action to us; when by the in- 
vasion of Belgium she had violated the solemn 
covenant she had made with us to observe the 
law of neutrality established for the pro- 
12 



tection of peaceful States; when she had 
arrogantly demanded that American com- 
merce should surrender its lawful right 
of passage upon the high seas under penalty 
of destruction; when she had sunk American 
ships and sent to their death hundreds of 
American citizens, peaceful men, women, and 
children; when the Gulflight and the Falaba 
and the Persia and the Arabic and the 
Sussex and the Lusitania had been tor- 
pedoed without warning, in contempt of 
law and of humanity; when the German em- 
bassy at Washington had been found to be 
the headquarters of a vast conspiracy of 
corruption within our country, inciting sedi- 
tion and concealing infernal machines in the 
cargoes of our ships, and blowing up our 
factories with the workmen laboring in them; 
and when the Government of Germany had 
been discovered attempting to incite Mexico 
and Japan to form a league with her to attack 
us, and to bring about a dismemberment of 
our territory; then the question presented 
to the American people was not what shall 
be done regarding each of these specific 
aggressions taken by itself, but what shall 
be done by America to defend her com- 
merce, her territory, her citizens, her in- 
dependence, her liberty, her life as a nation, 
against the continuance of assaults already 
begun by that mighty and conscienceless 
power which has swept aside every restraint 
and every principle of Christian civilization, 
and is seeking to force upon a subjugated world 
the dark and cruel rule of a barbarous past. 
The question was, How shall peaceful and 
unprepared and liberty-loving America save 

13 



herself from subjection to the military power 
of Germany? 

There was but one possible answer. 
There was but one chance for rescue, and 
that was to act at once, while the other 
democracies of the world were still main- 
taining their liberty against the oppressor; 
to prepare at once while the armies and the 
navies of England and France and Italy 
and Russia and Roumania were holding 
down Germany so that she could not attack 
us while our preparation was but half ac- 
complished; to strike while there were Allies 
loving freedom like ourselves to strike with 
us; to do our share to prevent the German 
Kaiser from acquiring that domination over 
the world which would have left us without 
friends to aid us, without preparation, and 
without the possibility of successful defense. 

The instinct of the American democracy 
which led it to act when it did, arose from a 
long-delayed and reluctant consciousness, 
still vague and half-expressed, that this is 
no ordinary war which the world is wag- 
ing. It is no conquest for petty policies and 
profits. 

It is a mighty and all-embracing struggle 
between two conflicting principles of human 
right and human duty. 

It is a conflict between the divine right of 
kings to govern mankind through armies and 
nobles, and the right of the peoples of the 
earth who toil and endure and aspire, to 
govern themselves by law under justice, 
and in the freedom of individual manhood. 

It is the climax of the supreme struggle 
between autocracy and democracy. No 

14 



nation can stand aside and be free from 
its effects. The two systems cannot endure 
together in the same world. If autocracy 
triumphs, military power — lustful of domin- 
ion, supreme in strength, intolerant of human 
rights, holding itself above the reach of 
law, superior to morals, to faith, to com- 
passion — will crush out the free democracies 
of the world. If autocracy is defeated and 
nations are compelled to recognize the rule 
of law and of morals, then and then only 
will democracy be safe. 

To this great conflict for human rights 
and human liberty, America has committed 
herself. There can be no backward step. 
There must be either humiliating and de- 
grading submission, or terrible defeat, or 
glorious victory. It was no human will that 
brought us to this pass. It was not the 
President. It was not Congress. It was 
not the press. It was not any political 
party. It was not any section or part of 
our people. 

It was the fact that, in the providence of 
God, the mighty forces that determine the 
destinies of mankind beyond the control of 
human purpose, have brought to us the time, 
the occasion, the necessity, that this peaceful 
people so long enjoying the blessings of liberty 
and justice for which their fathers fought 
and sacrificed, shall again gird themselves 
for conflict, and with all the forces of man- 
hood nurtured and strengthened by liberty, 
offer again the sacrifice of possessions and 
of life itself, that this Nation may still be free, 
that the mission of American democracy shall 
not have failed, that the world shall be free. 

15 



Loyalty Leaflets ? * ♦ No. 6 

Ways to Serve 
the Nation 




A PROCLAMATION BY THE 
PRESIDENT, APRIL 16, 1917 



)FZ>* 



COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 



Collected set 



Ways to Serve the Nation 



A Proclamation by the President, April 16, 1917 



My Fellow-Countrymen: 

The entrance of our own beloved countrv 
into the grim and terrible war for democracy 
and human rights which has shaken the world 
creates so many problems of national life and 
action which call for immediate consideration 
and settlement that I hope you will permit me 
to address to you a few words of earnest! 
counsel and appeal with regard to them. 

We are rapidly putting our navy upon an 
efficient war footing and are about to create: 
and equip a great army, but these are the 
simplest parts of the great task to which wei 
have addressed ourselves. There is not a 
single selfish element, so far as I can see, in 
the cause we are fighting for. We are^ 
fighting for what we believe and wish to be 
the rights of mankind and for the future- 
peace and security of the world. To do this 
great thing worthily and successfully we! 
must devote ourselves to the service without 
regard to profit or material advantage, and 
with an energy and intelligence that will rise 
to the level of the enterprise itself. We must 
realize to the full how great the task is, and 
how many things, how many kinds and ele- 
ments of capacity and service and self- 
sacrifice, it involves. 



These, then, are the things we must do, 
and do well, besides fighting — the things 
without which mere fighting would be fruit- 
less: 

We must supply abundant food for ourselves 
and for our armies and our seamen not only, 
but also for a large part of the nations with 
whom we have now made common cause, in 
whose support and by whose sides we shall be 
fighting ; 

We must suppfy ships by the hundreds out 
of our shipyards to carry to the other side of 
the sea, submarines or no submarines, what 
will every day be needed there; and — 

Abundant materials out of our fields and 
our mines and our factories with which not 
only to clothe and equip our own forces on 
land and sea but also to clothe and support 
our people for whom the gallant fellows under 
arms can no longer work, to help clothe and 
equip the armies with which we are co-operat- 
ing in Europe, and to keep the looms and 
manufactories there in raw material; 

Coal to keep the fires going in ships at sea 
and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories 
across the sea; 

Steel out of which to make arms and am- 
munition both here and there; 

Rails for worn-out railways back of the 
fighting fronts ; 

Locomotives and rolling stock to take the 
place of those every day going to pieces; 

Everything with which the people of 
England and France and Italy and Russia 
have usually supplied themselves, but cannot 



now afford the men, the materials, or the 
machinery to make. 

It is evident to every thinking man that 
our industries, on the farms, in the shipyards, 
in the mines, in the factories, must be made 
more prolific and more efficient than ever, and 
that they must be more economically man- 
aged and better adapted to the particular re- 
quirements of our task than they have been ; 
and what I want to say is that the men and 
women who devote their thought and their 
energy to these things will be serving the 
country and conducting the fight for peace 
and freedom just as truly and just as effec- 
tively as the men on the battlefield or in the 
trenches. The industrial forces of the coun- 
try, men and women alike, will be a great 
national, a great international, Service Army, 
— a notable and honored host engaged in the 
service of the nation and the world, the 
efficient friends and saviors of free men every- 
where. Thousands, nay, hundreds of thou- 
sands, of men otherwise liable to military serv- 
ice will of right and of necessity be excused 
from that service, and assigned to the funda- 
mental sustaining work of the fields and 
factories and mines; and they will be as much 
part of the great patriotic forces of the 
Nation as the men under fire. 

I take the liberty, therefore, of addressing 
this word to the farmers of the country and to 
all who work on the farms. 

The supreme need of our own nation and 
of the nations with which we are co-operating 
is an abundance of supplies, and especially 
of foodstuffs. The importance of an ade- 



3iiate food supply, especially for the present 
pear , is superlative . Without abundant food , 
ilike for the armies and the peoples now at 
var, the whole great enterprise upon which 
<ve have embarked will break down and fail. 
The world's food reserves are low. Not only 
luring the present emergency, but for some 
ime after peace shall have come, both our 
)wn people and a large proportion of the 
people of Europe must rely upon the harvests 
n America. Upon the farmers of this 
country, therefore, in large measure, rests 
he fate of the world and the fate of the 
lations. May the nation not count upon 
,hem to omit no step that will increase the 
uroduction of their land or that will bring 
ibout the most effectual co-operation in the 
sale and distribution of their products)? The 
ime is short. It is of the most imperative 
mportance that everything possible be done 
md done immediately to make sure of large 
mrvests. I call upon young men and old 
dike and upon the able-bodied boys of the 
and to accept and act upon this duty — to 
urn in hosts to the farms and make certain 
hat no pains and no labor is lacking in this 
creat matter. 

I particularly appeal tcf the farmers of the 
south to plant abundant foodstuffs as well 
is cotton. They can show their patriotism 
n no better or more convincing way than by 
•esisting the great temptation of the present 
Drice of cotton and helping, helping upon a 
arge scale, to feed the Nation and the peoples 
everywhere who are fighting for their liberties 
md for our own. The variety of their crops 
5 



will be the visible measure of their compn 
hension of their national duty. 

The Government of the United States an 
the governments of the several States stan 
ready to co-operate. They will do everythini 
possible to assist farmers in securing an ade 
quate force of laborers when they are mos 
needed, at harvest time, and the means c 
expediting shipments of fertilizers and fan 
machinery, as well as of the crops themselve 
when harvested . The course of trade shall b 
as unhampered as it is possible to make it, an 
there shall be no unwarranted manipulatio: 
of the Nation's food supply by those wh 
handle it on its way to the consumer. Thi 
is our opportunity to demonstrate the effi 
cienc}^ of a great Democracy, and we.shalj 
not fall short of it. 

This let me say to the middlemen of ever 
sort, whether they are handling our food 
stuffs or our raw materials of manufacture o 
the products of our mills and factories : Th(| 
eyes of the world will be especially upon you 
This is your opportunity for signal service 
efficient and disinterested. The country ex 
pects you, as it expects all others, to foregc 
unusual profits, to organize and expedite ship 
ments of supplies of every kind, but especialh 
of food, with an eye to the service you an 
rendering and in the spirit of those who enlisl 
in the ranks, for their people, not for them- 
selves. I shall confidently expect you tc 
deserve and win the confidence of people oi 
every sort and station. 

To the men who run the railways of the 
country, whether they be managers or opera- 



tive employees, let me say that the railways 
are the arteries of the nation's life, and that 
upon them rests the immense responsibility of 
seeing to it that those arteries suffer no 
obstruction of any kind, no inefficiency or 
slackened power. 

To the merchant let me suggest the motto, 
"Small profits and quick service"; and to the 
shipbuilder the thought that the life of the 
war depends upon him. The food and the 
war supplies must be carried across the seas 
no matter how many ships are sent to the 
bottom. The places of those that go down 
must be supplied and supplied at once. 

To the miner let me say that he stands 
where the farmer does; the work of the world 
waits on him. If he slackens or fails, armies 
and statesmen are helpless. He also is en- 
listed in the great Service Army. 

The manufacturer does not need to be told, 
I hope, that the nation looks to him to speed 
and perfect every process ; and I want only to 
remind his employees that their service is 
absolutely indispensable and is counted on 
by every man who loves his country and its 
liberties. 

Let me suggest, also, that everyone who 
creates or cultivates a garden helps, and 
helps greatly, to solve the problem of the 
feeding of the nations; and that every house- 
wife who practices strict economy puts her- 
self in the ranks of those who serve the 
Nation. This is the time for America to 
correct her unpardonable fault of wasteful- 
ness and extravagance. Let every man and 
every woman assume the duty of careful 

7 



provident use and expenditure as a public 
duty, as a dictate of patriotism which no one 
can now expect ever to be excused or forgiven 
for ignoring. 

In the hope that this statement of the needs 
of the Nation and of the world in this hour of 
supreme crisis may stimulate those to whom 
it comes and remind all who need reminder 
of the solemn duties of a time such as the 
world has never seen before, I beg that all 
editors and publishers everywhere will give as 
prominent publication and as wide circulation 
as possible to this appeal. I venture to sug- 
gest, also, to all advertising agencies that they 
would perhaps render a very substantial and 
timely service to the country if they would 
give it widespread repetition. And I hope 
that clergymen will not think the theme of it 
an unworthy or inappropriate subject of com- 
ment and homily from their pulpits. 

The supreme test of the Nation has come. 
We must all speak, act, and serve together! 

WOODROW WILSON. 



Loyalty Leaflets '1 f i No. 7 



What Really 
Matters 




A letter by an unnamed writer, quoted 
by Rev. Joseph H. Odell in an article in 
the Atlantic Monthly for February, 1918 






COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC INFORMATION 

The Secretary of State 
The Secretary of War 
The Secretary of the Navy 
George Creel 



.ft* 



K* 



What Really Matters 

THE world is getting down to brass tacks. 
(I wonder who invented that phrase and 
what its original significance was.) We are 
cutting out all sorts of non-essentials. Daniel 
Willard of the War Board has emphasized the 
need of eliminating non-essentials if we are to 
win the war, but he meant physical non- 
essentials. We must cut out mental and 
spiritual non-essentials too; and we are be- 
ginning to do it to a surprising and en- 
couraging degree. As a matter of fact, the 
trend was in that direction before the war; 
the tendency has long been toward a world- 
wide standardization, a universal merging or 
pooling in the interests of efficiency. 

The one question now is autocracy versus 
democracy. Nothing else matters for the 
moment . 

Therefore our prejudices must go; we 
must give up old preferences; we cannot 
think provincially any longer. The doctrines 
we laboriously taught must be foregone. 
What difference does it make what the 
political economies say? What difference 
does it make what the party platforms of the 



last generation have declared? Every hid- 
den hypocrisy is now revealed; every conten- 
tion that was based on selfishness stands ex- 
posed ; every programme of personal or 
factional or neighborhood greed that we 
clothed in a disguise of wholesomeness, which 
almost deceived even ourselves, disappears. 

Autocracy or democracy — there is our stark 
alternative. 

We cared for certain foods and did not care 
for others. No matter; we shall eat what is 
set before us. 

We had our preferences in raiment. We 
shall take what we can get. 

"The best government is that which governs 
least." But now the best government is the 
government which lends the most effective 
aid to the grand alliance against Germany. 

We argued the relative merits and ethics of 
direct and indirect taxation. Now the only 
question is how to raise the money we need 
most easily and promptly. 

Old obstacles break down everywhere. 
Nothing is sacred now — except Our Cause 
Nothing can be sure of its standing in our 
hearts and souls except the future of human 
liberty. We may go back to our prejudices 
by and by ; there is perhaps no reason why we 
should not when there is time for such non- 
essentials. 



The Government has always heretofore 
maintained an attitude of aloofness from its 
thrifty citizens; it offered them nothing in 
the way of investments. Now its attitude 
toward them is one urgent welcome ; a child 
with twenty-five cents is free to become a 
creditor of the august Federal regime. 

Never was the Government so close to its 
people; never, perhaps, in another sense, so 
far from them. But, either way, old con- 
ceptions of government are broken down. 

The trend is all in the direction of a weaken- 
ing of tradition and form. What is the 
Constitution in this greatest of all crises? 
If it serves, we shall revere it as it is; if it 
does not serve, we shall amend it to suit the 
new duty of the new occasion. 

Nothing matters but the winning of the war. 

We must forego our old social prejudices. 
We have very largely foregone them. We 
may like our little circle about the hearth as 
much as ever, and we are entitled to it; but 
we must not let it interfere for a moment 
with our larger social, national, or interna- 
tional obligations. 

The day of the Pilgrim Fathers is over. 
Like it or not, we have got to face it. New 
England is what we would have called till 
lately an alien corner of the country. It is a 
New Europe rather than a New England 



now. ii we pine ior an uniamieu Angio- 
Saxon survival, we shall have to seek it among 
the unspoiled mountaineers of North Carolina 
and Tennessee. . . . 

Republican? Democrat? Prohibitionist or 
Socialist? Mere unmeaning names just now. 
Even American is too small for the world- 
emergency except as it is a synonym for 
liberty and democracy. 

There are 168 religious denominations in 
the United States. . . . There is one re- 
ligious need, one religious aspiration; it is the 
desire to simplify and intensify man's relations 
with the Eternal Power. 

Wake up America! Slough off the non- 
essentials. Get down to brass tacks. Live 
simply, think sincerely, give all you have of- 
mind and strength to the one task before 
which every other task pales. 



PUBLICATIONS OF THE COMMITTEE 



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Plans. 

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G. German War Practices: Part I. 

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The Great War: From Spectator to Participant. 

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German Translation of Number 106. 

American Interest in Popular Government Abroad. 

Home Reading Course for Citizen Soldiers. 

First Session of the War Congress. 

The German War Code. 

American and Allied Ideals. 

German Militarism and Its German Critics. 

The War for Peace. 

Why America Fights Germany. 

The Study of the Great War. 

The Activities of the Committee on Public Information. 

III. LOYALTY LEAFLETS 

Friendly Words to the Foreign Born. 

The Prussian System. 

Labor and the War. By the President. 

A War Message to the Farmer. By the President. 

Plain Issues of the War . 

Wavs to Serve the Nation. A Proclamation by the President. 

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